Author: Steve Jones
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The 30-Day Fitness Calendar: Build Your Kid’s Off-Season Base
The direct answer: the off-season fitness base is built with simple, consistent work — not heroic workouts. Today we’re launching a free tool that turns that principle into a daily plan: the 30-Day Fitness Calendar. It starts with a baseline assessment of six simple fitness tests, places your player on one of five levels, and…
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Play Through It or See the Doctor? The Parent’s Injury Decision Guide
The direct answer: most junior tennis aches are safe to manage at home — but a few are not, and the difference matters. See a doctor when there’s a limp that lasts more than 48–72 hours, pain that lingers into the next day, any swelling, night pain, or anything involving a joint that looks wrong.…
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No-Ad, Short Sets & Timed Matches: Junior Tournament Formats Decoded
The direct answer: junior tournaments don’t all use the scoring you see on TV, and the format changes with your kid’s age — 10s often play no-ad short sets to 4, 12s play fuller scoring, and some events use pro-sets or even timed matches when the facility needs courts back. None of it is random.…
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Finding the Right Hitting Partners (More Important Than You Think)
The direct answer: a good hitting partner might be the highest-value investment in your junior’s development — more valuable than another private lesson per week. Lessons build technique; hitting partners build tennis. Matches are won on rhythm, repetition, and the ability to problem-solve against a live opponent, and none of that comes from a basket…
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The Off-Season Training Block: November–January Blueprint
The direct answer: the November–January off-season is the most valuable training window in junior tennis, because it’s the only time of year when there’s nothing to win. No rankings pressure, no tournaments every weekend — just weeks of uninterrupted time to get fitter, fix technique, and rest. The juniors who make the biggest jumps year…
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Strength Training for Juniors: What’s Safe at Every Age
The direct answer: yes, juniors can strength train safely — but what “strength training” means changes completely by age. For young kids it means climbing, jumping, and playing. For pre-teens it means bodyweight exercises with perfect form. For older teens it can mean supervised resistance work. The through-line at every age: bodyweight first, form before…
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Footwork First: The Most Underrated Junior Skill
The direct answer: footwork is the most underrated junior skill because nearly every missed shot in junior tennis is, at root, a movement failure. Kids don’t miss because their forehand technique is broken — they miss because they arrived late, off balance, or too close to the ball, and no stroke technique survives bad positioning.…
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The Serve: Why It’s the Last Thing to Develop (and How to Help)
Here’s the direct answer: the serve develops last because it’s the most physically and technically demanding shot in tennis. It requires shoulder and core strength most kids don’t have yet, plus the coordination to toss a ball and hit it at full extension with a complex motion — the only shot in tennis where the…
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Red, Orange, Green, Yellow: The Ball Progression Explained
If you’re new to junior tennis, the colored balls can look like a marketing gimmick. They’re not. Red, orange, green, and yellow are stages of a ball progression system designed so kids learn real tennis technique on courts and with balls scaled to their size and strength. Your child moves through the colors roughly in…
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How Many Hours a Week Should a Junior Train? (By Age)
The direct answer, up front: most junior players train far more than they need to and rest far less than they should. A 10-year-old does not need 15 hours a week. A 16-year-old chasing high-level competition probably needs 12–18. And at every age, the right number is the one your specific kid can sustain with…
